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Hundreds of troops from Britain’s 16 Air Assault Brigade jumped into Ukraine in Sept 2000 for drills with local forces

Boris Johnson says UK could send combat troops to face Russia as Putin puts a ‘gun to Ukraine’s head’ – after minister warns Moscow’s soldiers are already in the threatened country ahead of military build-up by Nato

  • PM told MPs that the UK ‘would look to contribute to any new Nato deployment’ 
  • An estimated 100,000 Russian troops have massed at the border with Ukraine
  • Last night the United States put 8,500 troops on high alert to deploy to Europe
  • Denmark is sending a frigate to the Baltic and F-16 fighter jets to Lithuania 
  • The UK has supplied Ukraine with thousands of anti-tank weapons already

 David Wilcock – Mail Online Jan 25, 2022

Boris Johnson suggested British combat troops could be sent to face down Russian forces threatening Ukraine as tensions rose between Vladimir Putin and the West.

The Prime Minister told MPs that the UK ‘would look to contribute to any new Nato deployment’ as allies readied soldiers and sent warships and fighter aircraft to the troubled region.

An estimated 100,000 Russian troops have massed at the border with Ukraine and intense diplomatic activity has failed to ease tensions.

Last night the United States put 8,500 troops on high alert to deploy to Europe at short notice.

Denmark is sending a frigate to the Baltic Sea and is set to deploy F-16 fighter jets to Lithuania, Spain is sending ships and is considering sending fighter jets to Bulgaria, France has expressed its readiness to send troops to Romania, and the Netherlands is sending two F-35 fighter planes to Bulgaria from April.

It came after a senior defence minister warned Russian advance troops are already operating in Ukraine ahead of a possible invasion.

James Heappey said a ‘significant’ number of Vladimir Putin‘s soldiers were already operating behind the lines.

Britain has already supplied Kyiv with thousands of anti-tank weapons and Mr Heappey likened the situation to the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 that triggered the Second World War.

Making a statement in the House of Commons, Mr Johnson warned that if the ‘worst happens’ in Ukraine the country’s resistance ‘would be dogged and tenacious, and the bloodshed comparable to the first war in Chechnya or Bosnia’.

British troops in Estonia near the border with Russia in 2018. Click to enlarge

He added: ‘The British Army leads the Nato battle group in Estonia and if Russia invades Ukraine, we would look to contribute to any new Nato deployments to protect our allies in Europe.

‘We cannot bargain away the vision of a Europe whole and free that emerged in those amazing years from 1989 to 1991, healing the division of our continent by the Iron Curtain.

‘We will not reopen that divide by agreeing to overturn the European security order because Russia has placed a gun to Ukraine’s head.’

He added: ‘If Russia pursues this path, many Russian mothers’ sons will not be coming home.’

Conservative chairman of the Defence Committee Tobias Ellwood said it is not too late to mobilise a ‘sizeable’ Nato presence in Ukraine, utilising the alliance’s power to ‘make Putin think twice’.

Earlier Foreign Secretary Liz Truss failed to rule out UK combat troops being sent to help defend Ukraine, telling MPs such a scenario is ‘unlikely’.

Conservative MP James Gray (North Wiltshire) asked in the Commons: ‘Are there any circumstances under which she could see British troops being deployed in a combat role defending Ukraine?’

Ms Truss replied: ‘As the Defence Secretary has already said, it is unlikely that that would be the circumstance.

‘But what we are doing is working very hard to make sure that Ukraine has the defensive weapons it needs, that it has the training it needs – we’ve trained 20,000 Ukrainian personnel – and also that it has the support of the international community; we’re pushing our allies very hard to make sure they are offering similar defensive support.’

 

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